Five Poems by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

 

Boy 

 

It was the only time I ever saw my father panicked. 

He rushed through the door with blood on his work shirt. 

Said his friend Dave had hit this kid on a bike 

that came out of nowhere. 

Went right through the windshield. 

I watched my father run to the back of the house 

with my mother close behind. 

I was five years old, sitting on the couch watching television. 

They closed the door so I couldn’t hear what was said. 

When they returned moments later, 

my father had on a brand-new outfit and  

my mother a load of laundry. 

I asked if it was a boy or girl. 

Boy, my father said gazing out the kitchen window. 

In a strange empty voice I had never heard before. 

Is the boy alright? 

I asked. 

My father didn’t answer 

and I never asked that question  

again.

 

 

And who should I find in my bed this afternoon 

 

This rented room is mine for days. 

The ghost of old pipe smoke, 

triangled towels like a thirsty pleaser. 

The chatterbox from housekeeping, 

a true fountain of the latest gossips – 

great aerosol scandals all through  

the ringlets of her hair. 

And who should I find in my bed this afternoon, 

but a single hard mint for untenable breath. 

That Styrofoam pyramid of overturned cups  

beside a broken coffee maker. 

The blustery street below cobbled together 

like a witchy brew. 

If I shave, it will be with the fleet 

bounding diffidence of grave robbers, 

this tomb of my body opened and bled 

like a clumsy ransack. 

A steamy sharp hiss from the radiator, 

and the fingers of thieves  

are gone.

 

Dine and Dash on Tubberville 

 

The meal begins customary enough. 

Orders from the menu, appetizers arriving first 

like culinary feelers. 

 

Followed by the main  

and drink refills. 

 

An attentive waiter putting himself  

through school. 

 

Mediterranean themed wall murals pleasing to the eye. 

Ambient muzak piped in from the ailing mysteries. 

 

At this restaurant on Tubberville. 

A family operation. 

Half the bloodline works the kitchen. 

Multiple generations. 

 

And table seven becomes lost. 

In the mountains of free bread and custom. 

 

A man and woman in their early 30s, perhaps. 

Now empty seats and empty plates. 

 

Another dine and dash. 

The sixth this year that was successful. 

 

The owner’s wife wants to start taking down the tag numbers 

of all the customers when they arrive. 

 

Fights with her husband who remembers the Communists  

back home well enough that he doesn’t want  

to become them. 

 

“You don’t escape tyranny to become tyranny,” 

he pleads with her. 

It is a fight all the time.

 

 

Yeti Spaghetti  

 

Jasper held the meat over flame.  Falling under the trance of cave-painted bedfellows.  Fashioned into balls for the Yeti Spaghetti.  The noodles were easy, like stretched imaginings drained and piled onto patterned plates.  The meat came straight from the kill; a Yeti that didn’t want to die but succumbed to the hunger of others.  Jasper ran his hand through his beard, felt a collection of crumbs like old trading cards.  His legs kept seizing with the thunder of unknown gods. The blacks of tired eyes, puffy and preposterous.  Jokes jumped into his pony up head like losing wagers to a laugh-less sand crab carnality.  When the phone rang, it was the insurance man trying to hedge his bets.  Stay out in front of things like your classic front-runner.  Jasper scratched the side of his nose, wondered why people did anything for luck.  Old nicotine yellowing his fingers while the buzzing night things made the rounds.  The trick was to survive when everything else worked against you.  Not in any showy way, just one breath to the next.  Jasper licked the stir-stick, approved of the sauce.  The meat was almost ready.

 

 

Specialty Coffee 

 

He kept wearing strategically faded  

band shirts from all the wailing guitar solos  

he had never seen in concert. 

 

Standing in line  

to buy $7 coffees 

like that was ever  

a good idea. 

 

Waiting for the name he gave  

to be called, looking down to the cup  

to see how they had spelt it  

this time. 

 

For his specialty coffee. 

 

From some purple-haired nose ring 

that had gone through the phonetic  

educational system.  

 

As that little rat of a dog  

behind him  

got carried around  

like precious house  

keys.  

 

Eating far better  

than he did.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.